Userspace Arduino:BlinkWithoutDelay

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Revision as of 12:30, 17 September 2013 by Meanbot(Talk | contribs)(Created page with "== Introduction == Sometimes you need to do two things at once. For example you might want to blink an LED (or some other time-sensitive function) while reading a button pres...")

Introduction

Sometimes you need to do two things at once. For example you might want to blink an LED (or some other time-sensitive function) while reading a button press or other input. In this case, you can't use delay(), or you'd stop everything else the program while the LED blinked. The program might miss the button press if it happens during the delay(). This sketch demonstrates how to blink the LED without using delay(). [1]

The overall setup is same as BlinkUserspace. The only change is in the code.

Sketch

/* Blink without Delay
Turns on and off a light emitting diode(LED) connected to a digital
pin, without using the delay() function. This means that other code
can run at the same time without being interrupted by the LED code.
The circuit:
* LED attached from pin 8_19 (7) to ground.
This example code is in the public domain.
*/
// constants won't change. Used here to
// set pin numbers:
const int ledPin = 7; // the number of the LED pin
// Variables will change:
int ledState = LOW; // ledState used to set the LED
long previousMillis = 0; // will store last time LED was updated
// the follow variables is a long because the time, measured in miliseconds,
// will quickly become a bigger number than can be stored in an int.
long interval = 1000; // interval at which to blink (milliseconds)
void setup() {
// set the digital pin as output:
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
}
void loop()
{
// here is where you'd put code that needs to be running all the time.
// check to see if it's time to blink the LED; that is, if the
// difference between the current time and last time you blinked
// the LED is bigger than the interval at which you want to
// blink the LED.
unsigned long currentMillis = millis();
if(currentMillis - previousMillis > interval) {
// save the last time you blinked the LED
previousMillis = currentMillis;
// if the LED is off turn it on and vice-versa:
if (ledState == LOW)
ledState = HIGH;
else
ledState = LOW;
// set the LED with the ledState of the variable:
digitalWrite(ledPin, ledState);
}
}